Former Bukit Jalil estate worker families will
get their long sought-after meeting with Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak on
July 10, next Tuesday.
The families have sent numerous letters requesting Najib’s help since 2011, but have never received any final word on their situation.
Finally, after camping outside the Prime Minister’s Office for two days in May, they were promised a meeting with the prime minister himself.
The meeting’s date was subsequently confirmed in a phone
call from the PMO, said Ladang Bukit Jalil action committee treasurer K
Balakrishnan when contacted by Malaysiakini.
A letter was sent to the PMO yesterday to request that the residents be allowed to send five representatives, but their request was declined in another phone call today.
Only three residents will be allowed to represent the group, and Parti Sosialis Malaysia secretary-general S Arutchelvan will not be allowed to take part in the proceedings, said Balakrishnan.
They had wanted Arutchelvan to act as an adviser to the group during the meeting, but the PMO objected to his presence on the grounds that he was not one of the residents.
However, Balakrishnan is still hopeful that Najib will help resolve their issues, calling on him to emulate his late father and former prime minister Abdul Razak Hussein.
“He is always saying nambikei... We expect our problems to be solved by the prime minister,” he said in reference to their request for four acres of land for housing.
After the estate’s land was acquired by the government in 1980, the families continued working as rubber tappers as the government sold off the land portion by portion to private developers.
Only 26 acres of the original 1,800 acres remain, and the families have been fighting off eviction notices from Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) since 2007 as most of them refused the government’s offer of low-cost flats as compensation.
The families have sent numerous letters requesting Najib’s help since 2011, but have never received any final word on their situation.
Finally, after camping outside the Prime Minister’s Office for two days in May, they were promised a meeting with the prime minister himself.
The meeting’s date was subsequently confirmed in a phone
call from the PMO, said Ladang Bukit Jalil action committee treasurer K
Balakrishnan when contacted by Malaysiakini.A letter was sent to the PMO yesterday to request that the residents be allowed to send five representatives, but their request was declined in another phone call today.
Only three residents will be allowed to represent the group, and Parti Sosialis Malaysia secretary-general S Arutchelvan will not be allowed to take part in the proceedings, said Balakrishnan.
They had wanted Arutchelvan to act as an adviser to the group during the meeting, but the PMO objected to his presence on the grounds that he was not one of the residents.
However, Balakrishnan is still hopeful that Najib will help resolve their issues, calling on him to emulate his late father and former prime minister Abdul Razak Hussein.
“He is always saying nambikei... We expect our problems to be solved by the prime minister,” he said in reference to their request for four acres of land for housing.
After the estate’s land was acquired by the government in 1980, the families continued working as rubber tappers as the government sold off the land portion by portion to private developers.
Only 26 acres of the original 1,800 acres remain, and the families have been fighting off eviction notices from Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) since 2007 as most of them refused the government’s offer of low-cost flats as compensation.
Source : http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/202878
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